Monday 01 July 2024
Week Eight was an important moment in the revision of the Katyn manuscript. By midweek, I began to see the “beginning of the end.” After revising BOOKS 3 and 4, I will have the (major) revision of BOOK 2 and the rewriting of the opening sequence of FADING OUTRO. And the revision of the Katyn manuscript will be complete! I think that all remaining revision work can be accomplished in two weeks—maybe sooner, depending upon how challenging the rewrite of BOOK 2 might be. Also, Week Eight was filled with initial hesitancy (should I cut entire chapters or save them or transplant them elsewhere?). A new realization is dawning: revising this manuscript turned out to be more emotionally challenging than I thought it would be.
Monday 24 June 25, 2024
Worked concurrently on two BOOK sections: 7 and FADING OUTRO. FADING OUTRO still needs work—the opening sequence. I haven’t yet visualized how to revise it. Nonetheless, progress. A funny, perhaps ironic, realization: although I have added portions of new lengthy content, the manuscript slowly is becoming shorter. Objectively, I know that I have cut several parts, but I might be able to get the manuscript in the 500+page range. Considering that the first draft was 635 pages, I like the streamlined but more detailed draft 2.
Tuesday 25 June 2024
I completed the full revision of BOOK 3; doing so was relatively easy given that the necessary changes were making cuts, transplanting certain paragraphs elsewhere in the manuscript, and other minor editorial corrections.
Moving one long section from BOOK 2 to BOOK 3 was nerve-wracking because the section was several pages long. Hoping the copy/paste operation didn’t malfunction, I felt afterward that I might be able to complete the total revision of the manuscript in 2 weeks. I know that BOOK 2 will be challenging to revise, and I will need to be methodical. In the original draft, BOOK 2 was over 100 pages long, rivaling BOOK 7—the chapter detailing the summer abroad trip. On the face of it, having BOOK 2 be longer than BOOK 7 makes no sense. At the same time, BOOK 2 was to be the manuscript’s Introduction, but it became more than just an introduction. It shed light on the emotional turmoil I went through writing the manuscript. Sometimes, I would add tangents—beautifully written tangents—but I now see that many of them no longer below in BOOK 2 or the manuscript.
I’m still trying to figure out how to fix the opening sequence of FADING OUTRO.
Another insight—not a new one but a better understood one: writing academic literary analysis is SO MUCH easier than creative nonfiction. What I worry about during the revision on the Katyn manuscript I didn’t even consider while revising my Melville dissertation. Two utterly different books, processes… everything. During the revision of the Katyn manuscript, I’m admiring more how artists create. Sure, I worried about overwriting while writing the Melville dissertation; however, with my creative nonfiction manuscript, overwriting somehow feels different. Much of what King Arthur is requesting I add, I considered “overwriting” last year while writing the first draft. Or am I saying this because I didn’t want to fully reveal the emotional consequences I felt while experiencing those moments which I wrote about? I definitely what to explore this possibility when I write the final assessment of this revision process.
Wednesday 26 June 2024
BOOK 4 revisions are mainly editorial—verb tenses, word choice, etc. Smoothing out transitions between chapters was slightly more challenging. What consumed me was the Anna Politkovskaya chapter. She is one of my greatest heroes, and I felt a great moral obligation to include her in the manuscript. Not only was she a Russian journalist who wrote about Putin’s war crimes and paid with her life for resisting his dictatorship, she demonstrated an empathy toward the victims of war. She became their voice, sometimes their only one. I teach her books in my war class. And she was an literary influence during my time at West Point; therefore, she should be in the manuscript.
However, while reading my Politkovskaya chapter, the writing felt heavy and clumsy. I didn’t know how to approach a potential revision—if it needed a revision. As always, walking the dog helps to clarify matters. Reading the first two paragraphs, I saw what was needed to make her inclusion relevant and vital.
When I wrote the original draft, I was mindful not to get carried away and write several pages (translation 15-25 pages). In total, the original chapter is almost 7 pages long; however, 2 of those 7 pages are classroom experiences teaching her articles to my West Point cadets—two cadets who then were selected to take my Poland-Russia trip to study Katyn. Therefore, including Politkovskaya is important emotionally and intellectually.
I took some notes and did some freewriting to determine if a revision of the Politkovskaya chapter is necessary: Yes, it is. So, I will step away from the desk, and reflect. I will rewrite this chapter early tomorrow morning—my most productive hour of the day!
Thursday 27 June 2024
The Politkovskaya chapter… frustrated at first with it, I almost cut it. Staring at it for some time, I started a line-by-line analysis. On the one hand, I was prepared to omit everything I shook my head at, I slowly replaced a line, word… until I saw through the streamlining of the opening paragraph… I saw potential for keeping it in. I highlighted how her books shaped my understanding of current Russia—thereby how indirectly that understanding then influences my approach to understanding the Katyn Massacres. The original chapter was almost 7 pages long; with the revision, it is now little over 5. I cut entire paragraphs but added new written content.
Inspired by this transformation of the Politkovskaya chapter, I reread BOOK 4. I edited out long, meandering sentences and took out unnecessary adjectives.
What I learned from this revision experience is sometimes “less is more.” I told King Arthur about my progress on revising BOOK 4. We joked about the expression of “less is more.”
After the joking, I did realize something else. When in fact should a writer write “less” and not “more”? To be true and honest to the lived experience that a writer is trying to recapture in prose, should a writer leave out certain parts of the experience because it is not relevant to the progression of the narrative? Should the writer not include those parts because those aspects are not as engaging as other parts are? Throughout the entire process of writing this manuscript—even while I was finishing the first draft last summer—I worried about authenticity. To include EVERYTHING or not? If I include EVERYTHING, then the manuscript would have been even longer, more complicated, thereby increasing the chances that the reader will become confused and frustrated, causing them to STOP reading. How should the writer handle the less than exciting moments of an experience? Should the writer include them to be true to the experience? If the writer doesn’t include them, does that omission make the writer less believable, make the text less trustworthy? How does the writer know when to include them? How does the writer know when to restrain themselves and not include them?
These writerly dilemmas are new ones for me because they are parts of my “growing pains” of becoming a nonfiction writer. The challenges of writing academic analytical prose are DIFFERENT from those of writing creative nonfiction, especially a memoir. I no longer believe that all writing is the same. Task and purpose: to persuade the reader of one’s message or argument; however, arguing for a certain reading of Moby-Dick doesn’t involve the same rhetorical decisions when describing a personal disillusionment or self-revealing experience. Nonfiction writing seems more vulnerable.
Friday 28 June 2024
Early morning reflection.
Last night during the re-revision of BOOK 4, I wondered whether to omit an entire chapter. This chapter narrates a small excursion I took here in the States with 2 cadets before the Poland-Russia summer course. We participated in a Katyn memorial/Catholic mass. I observed how some of the attendees were mocking certain speakers, particularly Polish-Americans who couldn’t speak Polish. Their derisions sounded familiar—I heard others say similar things about me. On the face of it, this little chapter does “fit” within the overall narrative; however, where it is located in the original draft, the chapter can be seen as a tangent.
I reread this chapter several times with the intention of removing it. Then a thought… what if I move elsewhere? What if I transplant it in the new revised BOOK 2—the so-called Introduction?
While considering this move, I rethought my writerly position on chronology, authenticity, and other factors. Should the nonfiction writer/memoirist include EVERYTHING? I can’t easily resolve this question. Not only does that question and its resolution affect the fate of this chapter but also the ultimate fate of another chapter I temporarily decided to omit—the chapter about anther cadet who was intended to join the summer course but due to certain circumstances couldn’t. Moreover, this chapter also discusses how this cadet died from cancer not too many years after finishing West Point.
Saturday 29 June 2024
Yesterday I visited two NYC museums. Finally saw Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I. Having taught the history of the painting (Nazis stealing it then the Austrians refusing to turn it over…) I felt like I actually SAW it.
No writing… and I did little thinking about the revision. The necessity of not writing/revising.
I took another day off from manuscript work today.